Opinion: Letter

Phansalkar’s criticism suspect

Robert Phansalkar’s recent opinion column (“Breathalizers at prom uncalled for,” April 22) criticized Whitnall High School’s decision to implement random Breathalyzer checks at their senior prom in order to curb teenage drinking at the dance. According to Mr. Phansalkar, this is not only a misguided policy being instituted as a “PR” tactic, but it also misses the point that “students are going to do it anyway.” The major problem with Mr. Phansalkar’s argument is that it runs a slippery slope when predicting outcomes of the proposed policy. The school is reacting to an increasing problem to the best of its ability.

In his article, Mr. Phansalkar suggests that using Breathalyzers is an awfully “harsh solution” with no guarantees that it will actually lead to the desired outcome. OK, that’s great, but there is also no proof that it won’t have the desired outcome either. A bit of evidence to back his claim would have been useful. Mr. Phansalkar is illustrating the issue as though the school board came up with this idea as a punitive PR measure. However, according to the city’s website, the decision was made upon complaints from both parents and students. 

A second claim made in the article is that such a policy will necessarily lead to either a “replacement strategy” where students will just go somewhere else for the night or it will cause students to use “more dangerous” and “less detectable thrills.” First, we are not talking about movie night at a friend’s house where other equally insignificant options of where to spend your Friday night are readily available. This is a senior prom, hence making it a significant event for most high school students. Having to possibly take a random Breathalyzer is not going to suddenly urge the student body to go get annihilated wherever else they will not be detected. On NPR, one student from California experiencing an identical situation stated, “it doesn’t really bother us.” The students feel that drinking is getting out of hand, and they want to feel safe while attending these events.

As for Mr. Phansalkar’s slippery claim that students will just substitute alcohol for more dangerous thrills, all I can say is “How absurd!” If a student never tried other substances before, the likelihood of them starting to do it just to defy the prom Breathalyzer system is probably low.

Mr. Phansalkar’s article is extremely critical of the Breathalyzer system without providing any feasible alternatives. He criticizes the measure as being one that possibly fixes the situational problem, but that does not address ending drinking overall. However, is it the role of the school, an educational institution, to address a permanent solution to teenage drinking problems? I would argue that that is something that needs to be handled in the private sphere. Thus, though Whitnall High School is not implementing a long-term plan to stop teenage drinking, they are appropriately handling the concerns of staff, parents and students within their legitimate sphere of influence and jurisdiction.

 

Sarah Rola

UW junior, political science

rola@wisc.edu